MH370 search: Anwar's mudslinging over missing plane a new low, says Khairy

PETALING JAYA: Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has taken Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to task for claiming that Malaysia's security loopholes were exposed by its failure to scramble fighter jets to intercept Flight MH370.

He said Anwar had sunk to a new low over another allegation that there was a possibility that the Government was “complicit” over what happened in the plane.

“@anwaribrahim implying that Msian authorities are complicit in #MH370 is as ludicrous as it is offensive. AI has clearly sunk to a new low,” he said on his Twitter account, @Khairykj.

"We are not in a state of war. This was a civilian airliner leaving our airspace, not an unidentified aircraft approaching from overseas.

"MH370 was following normal commercial routes, and civilian aircrafts frequently change course without jets being scrambled," said Khairy.

"This unfounded mudslinging by @anwaribrahim on an international stage is completely inappropriate and unhelpful to search efforts," added Khairy.

On Friday, Anwar had accused the government of hiding information on MH370, telling the Daily Telegraph that Malaysia's radar network, one he had approved funds for in 1994 as Finance Minister, would have picked up any change in MH370's course.

He had said that it was "not only unacceptable but not possible, not feasible" that MH370 could travel across four states undetected, adding that he believed the government "knows more than us."

"We don't have the sophistication of the United States or Britain but still we have the capacity to protect our borders," he said.

Flight MH370, on a Boeing777-200 with 239 people on board left KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.

On March 24, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that Flight MH370 "ended in the southern Indian Ocean" and the multinational search for the aircraft continues there.